The Little Details
by ItsRealForUs
Summary: Living with Sherlock Holmes can be incredibly frustrating, but John Watson does it anyway. After all, it can be interesting when the detective's deductions aren't 100% correct.


John pressed a palm over his face, letting it linger before he spread the fingers to the corners of his eyes. For one absurd moment, he considered the sessions with his old therapist and wondered if the return of his frustration and cynical humor in the face of reality meant progress. Well, he would have asked if Ms. Bracewell hadn't been covertly sacked from handling John Watson's rehabilitation by one Mycroft Holmes. But that wasn't important right now.

What was important was that he and Sherlock had been pounding the streets for four obscenely long hours in search of a particular coffee shop where a murder suspect had camped out, stalking his most recent victim. John's stomach rumbled as they passed the exact same chip stand with the exact same lovely smell of salt and frying oil that they passed half an hour before. He couldn't afford to stop, though; who knows what trouble a Sherlock on the trail could get himself into. The dutiful blogger had just begun constructing ways to lure the detective home for the day when he saw him stop dead in front of a miniscule cafe shuffled between two larger brick buildings. It was so small and inconspicuous, not to mention empty, that John might not have seen it if not for Sherlock's staring.

"What is it?" John asked, jogging the final distance to the frozen consulting detective. "Is this the place?"

Sherlock shook his head and pull out the Blackberry that so rarely left his side. "Of course not. But it's close, so close. What I need to know is what he was doing. There must have been something to occupy him as he sat. Not a book...he's not a book person. Too engrossing, too personal. Not a cell phone because the signal's terrible around here. If we can pinpoint that, then mayb-"

Sherlock immediately put on that horribly fake (to John) and utterly charming (to everyone else) smile of his and made a bee-line to a woman sitting outside of the cafe with a coffee in front of her and a sleek black device in her hands. John groaned and followed, prepared to explain exactly why the woman slapped a bemused and terribly rude Sherlock on the taxi ride home.

"That's the new model, isn't it?" Sherlock chirped, a touch of Cockney slipping into his normally crisp accent. The woman looked up from the tablet in surprise. She looked between Sherlock's (fake) smile and the text on the screen a few times in confusion.

"Oh, yes. It's the Kindle Fire," she said finally. American accent, Sherlock could probably pinpoint her hometown within a hundred miles. His slight facial shift indicated he pegged her as a Londoner.

"Yes, I'd been following enGadget about it. May I perhaps see it for a moment? I was unsure about some of the specs," he requested smoothly, his accent a touch refined and his tone one that women (and a few men, John discovered) rarely refuse.

"Ah, I suppose so," she mumbled, handing over the tablet and looking somewhat alarmed at her own actions. John thought it looked like a very large version of the Pink Lady's phone and didn't find it surprising when Sherlock whipped through a flurry of icons and applications on the smooth touch screen. The detective weighed it in his hands, looked from end to identical end, a very real smile tugging at his lips. John gave the woman now sipping her coffee one of his "thank you for putting up with my trying friend, here" looks. She caught it and responded with a smile. That was new. Most people tend to look more confused.

"This," Sherlock said at last with the tablet flat on his thin hand, "is what we're looking for. He clearly was using a tablet device, something like an ereader with long battery life and no reliance on wi-fi. Smaller cafes tend to pull the wi-fi card to attract customers, but he was at another venue that likely didn't cater to internet users. Therefore, not a cafe. More likely a tavern."

He looked at John half-expectantly. Unable to hide his admiration, John let off one of his beaming looks, the sort that said "You're brilliant" when he was trying not to repeat for the millionth time. Sherlock kept examining the ereader until a throat clearing caught his attention.

"Erm, sorry to interrupt, but may I have my Kindle back? I only got it-"

"You only got it yesterday and the cover hasn't arrived yet, judging by the fact that you have the ecologically-friendly padded packaging in your messenger bag," Sherlock quipped, throwing a glance to an old leather bag leaned against the woman's chair. "You're very careful with it, unwilling to mess it up with extraneous finger prints. You also use it at a table with two hands, rather than one-handedly walking as most people would use such a portable device. It's rather precious to you. Considering your lack of companionship at this table and your utter shock at being addressed, you don't have many friends yet in London, so this wasn't a gift from a friend. This is a very new gadget and still fairly expensive, so it's not something an overseas relative would purchase. Therefore you bought it yourself and saved up painstakingly for it. Judging by the eclectic selection of books and to-do notes on here, you're teaching Literature, somewhere within about five blocks of here because those boots are perfect for a teacher who walks to work. This is your favorite cafe, well secluded because you don't care for people and well-suited to your coffee habit which you indulge heavily in, likely in opposition of the popular consumption of alcohol that plagues other graduate studies at your college...where you are pursuing a higher degree to teach university, of course."

John knew his mouth was partially open, but he also knew that no one but Sherlock would notice. The woman at the table nodded slowly and took the Kindle that Sherlock finally held out. She tucked it into a small cardboard box and into the beat-up leather bag.

"Right on all accounts," she agreed a bit shakily. "I teach Literature at a school two blocks away and my flat's just down the street. I love coffee because I have a high caffeine tolerance and I don't drink. But it's because alcoholism runs in my family, despite the terribly misguided lives of other academics."

Sherlock tilted his head back and rolled his eyes. "Ugh, there's always something. Something so tiny I don't get."

John felt like smacking the back of his head while those dark curls were tilted so conveniently nearer his level. He'd just dissected another living human and, as fascinating as it was to follow his train of thought, he did it right in front of her and completely broke his character. Case-breaking adrenaline can only take so much blame.

The woman (professor? teacher?) grabbed her coffee and her bag. "Well I hope I've made a break in your investigation, Mr. Holmes."

Sherlock snapped his head up at the mention of his name. "What?"

She laughed and tapped the top of the cardboard box that contained the ereader. "You looked through all of my books and notes but didn't realize the subject of my dissertation? I'm writing on British mystery novels. My research tends to pull up some not-so-fictional records. Who else would be going about London deducing gadgets if not Sherlock Holmes and the dutiful blogger Dr. John Watson?" She gave a glance John's way and nodded before making her way down the street to hail a taxi.

Sherlock flared his coat dramatically as he spun down the opposite way on the pavement. He took several long and brooding steps that John had to hurry and catch up with before hailing a taxi for them.

"I must be tired," he said with a hint of a sneer as John closed the cab door. John actually was a bit tired from all of the legwork their most recent case had afforded, so the quiet mumblings of "there's always something" could have been his imagination. Rather than poke the bear that was his over-analyzing flatmate, John focused on memorizing the location of the tiny cafe and wondering if the English teacher would flash that all-knowing smile if he offered to buy her some coffee.

Four texts to Lestrade solved the case. The pride of his own vast superiority to the rest of human consciousness afforded Sherlock a whole two hours of post-case relaxation and ebbing adrenaline. John was in the middle of a Doctor Who episode, pot noodles in one of the uncontaminated bowls from the cupboard in his lap, when Sherlock started to get bored. The sighing started, as did the appearance of the blue dressing gown. Jon finally felt the tickling of irritation when his flatemate flopped unceremoniously down next to him and draped his long frame as far as it would go on the tiny remainder of couch. John scraped up the last of his noodles and set the bowl on the coffee table before turning around.

"What. The devil. Is wrong?" he deadpanned, feeling a strop in the slow making.

Sherlock sighed again. If John didn't know any better, he would have pegged Sherlock for an actor. The histrionics, the fake tears and smiles, the huge ego, it all fit. Right down to the temper tantrums when no big studio was tearing up the phone.

"Bored," Sherlock muttered. He twitched the fingers of his right hand, as though fingering an invisible violin. John was quite glad he'd hid it properly after the 3am screech session two days ago. The world's only consulting detective may be brilliant, but he's never bothered to discover their broom closet and check behind the cleaning supplies that only John touches.

"Right. Well, I've gathered that. You did just solve a case this afternoon, you know."

Sherlock glared at his doctor. _Your __obviousness __is __astounding_, the cold grey eyes scathed. The lips didn't need to say anything. John just rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, obvious, okay. Why don't you get up to an experiment? Or go...people-watching? That could be good, though we did get a lot of it in today."

Sherlock closed his eyes and flopped a pale forearm over his forehead in what John referred to as his "tortured genius" poses. The detective really had too many poses, too many expressions and tones, yet John felt like he had named them all. No matter what the pose was, John didn't feel like having Sherlock analyze shows on the telly all night. He got up, allowing the many limbs of his flatmate to fall upon the vacated half of the ouch.

"Where are you going?" Sherlock asked. John sometimes hated the tone, Sherlock's "I must know this information presently and you will tell me" tone. He pulled his jacket down from the hook by the door and put it on.

"She's not going to be around there, you know," the bundle of silk and Egyptian cotton called from the couch. John turned around to look at the beginnings of a pout.

"What?"

"The woman at the cafe. You're interested in pursuing her. She's not going to be around. School day tomorrow and she'll have to be up at five in the morning to make it to class anywhere around here. Besides, I doubt you'll be able to locate her flat just from my deduction. Even I would need more data."

John just stood there, his fingers paused in the act of zipping up his jacket. He was in a love/hate relationship with Sherlock's deductions. They were cuttingly truthful, but still brilliant. He hoped he could at least poke a few holes in his logic.

"And what," John began as he zipped up and stuck his (very still) hands into his pocket, "makes you think I was going to go out looking for her? Or that I'd want to date someone whose name I don't even know."

Sherlock sat up, glad for the attention and for the fact that John hadn't left the flat. "It's simplicity itself. You're not feeling up to my mood or listening to me break down the plot inaccuracies of your silly science fiction show. You would go out and try to catch up with Sarah but after the incident at the pool she finds herself unwilling to put the effort into a relationship with someone with such a...dangerous lifestyle and a commitment to work outside of the clinic. Today we met a not-unattractive woman in her late twenties who I exposed to have no friends in London or perhaps anywhere in the country. She was polite, quiet, very intelligent. She temporarily fooled me, which tends to amuse you. Alcoholism runs in her family and she fears addiction to any substance, much like your family and your blatant refusal to take those hospital-strength painkillers prescribed after our post-bomb stint in the hospital. You two really are somewhat compatible as she would appreciate you running around to solve cases as part of her romantic notion of reality that comes from immersion in fiction. A doctor and a teacher. It's a lovely, boring pairing."

John licked his lower lip, trying to hold in all the things he had to say about Sherlock's tight analysis of his possible future with Miss Kindle Fire Owner. He grabbed his keys from the table and dropped them in his jacket pocket.

"So," he said calmly, "since I'm so compatible with this woman, why shouldn't I chance a walk around her neighborhood to see if I run into her?"

Sherlock stood and paced, his dressing gown whipping behind him in their shared living room like his bat-like coat would on the street. He prowled the small space like a panther in a cage, sorting his data. John felt his eyes sweeping from the slippered feet to the trim and sashed waist to the thin shoulders and messy hair. Since when had this strange creature become a normal fixture in his life? Before he could muse further, Sherlock's volcano of information began its pyroclastic flow.

"One reason is the one I've already mentioned; she's in bed by now or near enough. Two is that she is reeling over a divorce. She got over here on student visa and married a short-term boyfriend so he could follow her and they could continue the relationship. She loved the school and loved London, he missed his friends and his own climate, probably tropical. Southern California, maybe, but far enough away from Hollywood. They divorced, he moved back. She's here, alone, because he was always the one who did the socializing and she'd scared of making another commitment. She could now be described as _married __to __her __work_," Sherlock supplied gleefully. "She also believes that you and I are in a romantic relationship and she isn't the type to break people up for her own gain."

John had unzipped his jacket and was halfway back to his chair when Sherlock's last comment sunk in. 'What? She...she believes what?"

"That we are in a romantic relationship and she isn't the type to break people up for her own gain," Sherlock echoed perfectly.

John sank down into his chair and Sherlock flopped back onto the couch. The doctor didn't even notice that his flatmate had resumed his "tortured genius" posed now that he was assured John wouldn't be leaving the flat anytime soon. Sinking down into the armchair, John replayed the scene at the cafe. He had barely spoken, got a smile out of the woman for acknowledging Sherlock's nuttiness...how the hell had she assumed a relationship out of that? How could anyone?

"A good deal of people assume we're in a relationship, especially if they've known me prior to meeting you. I believe there's some sort of pool going on down at the Yard as to when we'll come out about it. Mrs. Hudson has assumed from day one. The comments your sister makes on your blog posts also assume some sort of latent attraction. Roughly sixty percent of people we run into together, case or not, assume we're a homosexual couple. Around seventy-two percent of men assume I'm gay whether I'm with you or not and about thirty percent of women assume you're gay when we're together. She fell into that percentage and made the assumptive leap that we were together, possible because she knew of our long acquaintance through her research."

John opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no argument came. He'd dated four lovely women in the scant year that he'd known Sherlock, which was a low number for him but he assumed his lack of a social life was behind it. To hear that pretty much everyone he knew thought he was shagging his flatmate was a bit much to take in. He remembered the candle at "their" table at Angelo's and Mrs. Hudson's inquiry about the bedroom situation. He remembered Mycroft's ridiculous quip about a "happy announcement at the end of the week."

Sherlock hadn't even heard him leave the chair, but looked up sharply at the sound of the flat door slamming shut.

John was at a pub looking at the barely-touched pint in front of him when his phone buzzed against his thigh. He ignored it, hoping the growing noise from the other patrons watching the footie game would drown out the sound. It buzzed again, twice in rapid succession, before he pulled it out of his jeans pocket and flicked through the messages.

_Where are you? -SH_

_Have I done something wrong? -SH_

_Have I said something wrong? -SH_

Another buzz came and the screen lit up.

_I really dislike it when you are angry and silent about it. -SH_

Well that was interesting. Sherlock hardly expressed a feeling, much less in regard to John's feelings. John abandoned the lukewarm pint at the wooden bar and made his way back to Baker Street. Back to home.

He paused outside of the door and listened. It almost seemed like Sherlock had left or gone to sleep; surely a boredom-induced Sherlock wouldn't be so silent. The sound of breaking glass followed by soft swearing came from the other side of the door and John let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. Experiments. Of course. He opened the door to find out what was going on in Sherlock's mad brain.

The detective was in the process of blotting up a chemical stain from the carpet with an expensive-looking handkerchief. Still dressed in pyjamas and robe, he hadn't strayed far from his strop on the couch. John just sighed.

"We've been here over a year and you still don't know where the broom cupboard is?"

Sherlock looked up at John like he had just suggested they baby-sit all five of Lestrade's boisterous children. "We have... a broom cupboard?"

John stepped in and opened the slim door next to the stair, fetching some cleaning solution, a rag, and, for good measure, a violin case. Sherlock made a grab for the violin case, leaving the mysterious stain and occasional shard of broken glass for John. He ran his hands over the smooth surface and cracked open the case. With a small smile, he plucked a single string.

"I was wondering where this had gotten off to," he muttered, plucking a few more strings. John emptied the rag full of glass shards into the bin.

"Yeah. I decided to hide it in a place you'd never look. I guess I was right."

Sherlock nodded. He pulled out the old Strad and nestled it in his long arms. Before John could stop him, or ask what he meant by his texts, or do much of anything, Sherlock leaned into a heavy and throbbing piece of music. The notes were dissonant and mournful, but beautiful. John found the sofa, his eyes glued to Sherlock's utterly still frame save for the sway of playing. if John had the detective's powers of observation, he would have noticed how tight the man's eyes were closed as he played or the tension in his shoulders. He would have noticed the well-worn path the fingers traveled on the strings, suggesting the piece was played many times in his life though John had never heard a proper tune come from the instrument. Sherlock held out the last note as long as physics would allow before he finally opened his eyes again.

"That was brilliant," John said. Whether he was standing over a dead body and discussing the previous occupant's marriage situation or bending a sonata out of his tortured instrument, John was still amazed.

"Meretricious," muttered Sherlock, looking at the violin like he did the tablet device, from tip to tip, before returning it to the case.

"I don't think so."

Sherlock gave John an appraising look, one that would scan through people to look for deception and certain hidden things. He evidently found what he was looking for because he flopped down on the couch for the second time in so many hours next to his flatmate.

"So what was with the texts? I mean, I'm sorry for storming out but I never though you cared whether or not I was angry."

If John didn't know any better, he would say that Sherlock looked hurt. The piercing grey eyes certainly softened and the lips twisted, but John seriously never thought that Sherlock had a capacity to care. He did call himself a high-functioning sociopath, did he not? He did say he was married to his work. The case with Irene Adler could have produced some sort of inkling of a sexuality to Sherlock, but he'd treated her as a lost diamond that was broken up and sold before he could rescue it or a particularly good chess program on the computer. Competition, but not even a human. He remembered Mor...that man's...threat to burn the heart out of Sherlock. Strangely, the arch-villain was the only one to suppose Sherlock had a heart. Yet here the world's only consulting detective sat, looking hurt and slightly lost, wondering what social faux pas he had committed to make his flatmate abandon him for the night. John chewed on the inside of his cheek, wondering what to say.

"I read it online," Sherlock said abruptly. It was out there enough to confuse John.

"Er...read what?"

"The phrasing for the text. I read that people are less likely to become defensive and be more receptive to discussion if the statement is framed with an "I" as the subject, rather than "you". Therefore rather than texting, 'Why are you being such an insufferable idiot?", I texted how your actions made me...feel."

John shifted in his seat. Who knew that the four-letter f-word with Sherlock would be _feel_.

"Well, I'm sorry that I ran out. I just..."

"You felt threatened and disturbed that so many of your acquaintances had little to no concept of your sexual preference. It was even more disturbing because you had no idea how anyone could assume you, a normal, attainable, likeable figure could be in a relationship with a withdrawn and misanthropic individual like myself whose last relationship lasted about two weeks during a spell of boredom at university."

John leaned forward on his elbows, trying to deduce the master of deduction. His eyes roved over the closed-off posture, the defensive mannerisms, the clasped hands like in prayer under his chin. He took in the far-away eyes and thinned lips pressed together. He wondered, vaguely, how Sherlock never seemed to notice Molly Hooper falling all over him at the morgue. His mind even went back to the embarrassing display when "Jim from IT" came to visit, making big eyes and passing glances at the detective as John cringed. He remembered the pride in Sherlock's voice as he introduced him to Sebastian as his "friend" before an annoyed John corrected him. He's managed to come along on well over half of his dates. He's defended him to his insane brother and the occasional scathing remarks from Anderson at rime scenes. He cured his limp with adrenaline. He never cleans or makes the tea or buys the milk. And yet Sherlock was the one who pulled off the bomb anorak like it had been on him rather than John. Sherlock was the one who pulled John into the pool when the bomb went off. And Sherlock was the mad git he still lived with after all of that. The mad git who was looking too serious and too quiet at how John took the news that was obvious to everyone else.

"I'm afraid I have to poke some holes in your logic, there," John said. He swallowed hard when Sherlock swung his laser vision around to him.

"How so? I believe I was correct on all grounds?"

John leaned forward and kissed the words right off of Sherlock's lips. For a terrible moment, he thought he'd guessed wrong. But then Sherlock wound his arms around the army doctor next to him. He could have imagined it, but some minutes later when John found his jumper was too hot and that at a certain angle both he and Sherlock could fit perfectly lying together on the couch to watch bad telly, he swore he heard a soft mumbling as Sherlock stroked his hair:

"There's always something. There's always something."


End file.
